Ice bucket challenge big score for ALS Canada

Ice bucket challenge

Erin McCracken/Metroland

Eugene Melnyk, owner of the Ottawa Senators, left, and the team’s top defenceman Erik Karlsson are doused with icy water outside the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata on Aug. 19 as part of a charitable ice-bucket challenge. The spread of the ice bucket challenge has seen the ALS Society receive over a quarter of a million in donations.

Johnston said as of Aug. 19 morning, ALS Canada had raised $216,000 through the ice bucket challenge alone.

“That’s $216,000 we didn’t have – and weren’t anticipating – last week,” she said. “The ice bucket challenges in Ottawa have been unbelievably strong and we have a couple of really good ones coming in today as Mayor Jim Watson and the chief of police did it.”

By the end of the phone interview on Aug. 19, incoming donations had risen to $294,000 and rising. By 24 hours later, on Aug. 20, the total on the ALS Canada site for ice bucket challenges was at $729,000.

Johnston has about 80 clients in the Ottawa-area, including about six in Orléans.

One of those clients is Heather Greenhalgh, who lives in the Orléans neighbourhood of Convent Glen South.

“It’s been fantastic,” Greenhalgh said. “It’s an amazing way for people to show that they love you. A strange way, but an amazing way. It’s made me smile unbelievably.”

She said many of her family, friends and co-workers have done the ice bucket challenge. It’s also made her happy to see professional golfers who appear on television take part.

Greenhalgh said she frequently explains her disease to people because she doesn’t want them to think the stagger in her step is due to drinking alcohol.

“I say I have ALS and they don’t know what it is, and that’s a shame,” she said.

Besides making her smile, she is happy to know how much money has been donated to the Canadian society. She is hopeful that more research can be done with the funds, to find out why ALS happens and develop cures.

“As an ALS patient, I’m absolutely delighted at the outcome,” she said. “Whoever started it is a genius.”

The challenge took off slightly later in Canada than it did in the United States, as that’s where it first began.

Funds donated in Canada aren’t earmarked for specific communities, but put into a pool for ALS-diagnosed clients all over Canada as well as research.

Johnston said Ottawa is one of the top ALS fundraisers in Canada, with a significant money coming in annually from walks and fundraisers.

However, the organization is still small. The Ottawa-office of ALS Canada closed this month to eliminate overhead, though Johnston’s job was not eliminated.

One of the client services provided by ALS Canada includes loaning equipment for the rapidly-progressing disease. Someone with ALS could quickly decline, and need a walker, then a manual wheelchair, then a power wheelchair, in quick succession. ALS Canada helps to loan out the equipment, as well as provide other services.

“It’s really good to for the ALS community to see that the community is behind them,” she said. “One of the struggles is you get the diagnoses and no one even knows what ALS is. So for them to see that people are coming behind them has been huge.”

ALS Canada
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease. People living with the disease become progressively paralyzed due to degeneration of the upper and lower motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Eighty per cent of people with ALS die within two to five years of diagnosis– unable to breathe or swallow. Ten per cent of those affected may live for 10 years or longer.